


Breathe Again

by blackcoffeeandteardrops



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, On the Run, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:04:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackcoffeeandteardrops/pseuds/blackcoffeeandteardrops
Summary: They don't talk. Until finally, at least a little, they do. A brief MSR moment of solace while they're on the run.





	

They don’t talk.

Rather, they do, but about trivial things like the weather, or which shirt purchased with cash at a truck stop gas station will make them blend in more. They race down long stretches of highway with only the sound of the radio and the occasional crinkle of fast food wrappers to fill the silence. They check into hotel rooms, taking turns at being the one to show their face to the clerk, and bury themselves in bed, using the tv then to block out the chance to talk about anything more substantial. He tries a few times, but she begs him off, excusing herself to use the shower. Sometimes he joins her, and on the times he doesn’t, he pretends he can’t hear her muffled crying through the paper thin walls. It’s fair though, because when he wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping for air, she wraps herself around him and soothes him back to sleep. Acknowledged, but still, they don’t talk. 

They communicate what they don’t say through kisses and sighs, through a caress or a moan of pleasure. On particularly rough days, scratching and yelling may be involved, and they duck out before they have to explain dents in the wall left by the headboard.

They carry on like this for nearly three weeks, neither one willing to break the stalemate they’ve found themselves under. Sometimes, she nearly jumps at his hand touching her unexpectedly, or the sound of his voice when they’ve gone out of range from whatever radio station they were tuned into. 

It’s the sight of a sticky-fingered toddler running ahead of his mother, holding another crying child on her hip that somehow helps break the dam. 

“Hi,” the kid says, nearly tripping over his shoelaces as he runs up to their table in the highway diner they’ve found themselves at. 

Conveniently located next to a bus station and across the street from a hotel that didn’t ask questions, Mulder felt it was the best place to eat. Until he glances across the table, knowing by the way Scully scoots back further in her seat that she’s fighting to stay in control. He sets down his burger and wipes his mouth with a napkin before addressing the child blowing bubbles through his lips. “Hey, kid. Where’s your--”

“Oh, honey, leave those people alone,” a blonde woman says, adjusting the weight of the crying baby in her arms before grabbing the freckle faced toddler and pulling him away from the table. She smiles apologetically and turns the boy around, wiping at syrup on his face. “I just turned my head for a second as I was payin’ the bill. I hope he didn’t bother you.”

Mulder breaks his gaze away from Scully long enough to assure the woman he wasn’t any trouble at all. He watches as the woman ushers the toddler into the backseat of a beat up Toyota before buckling the baby in as well. He sees the look in her eyes as she peers up at the inky clouds, heavy with rain, and he can’t help wondering how much further she has to go.

“Can you get the check?” Scully says, her voice nothing more than a scratchy whisper as she gets up from the table. She holds a napkin to her chest, not bothering to look at Mulder as she tells him it’ll just be a minute. 

By the time Scully emerges from the bathroom, Mulder has already paid and is leaning against the door outside. There may have been times when he’d grab her hand or slide am around her waist as they walked across the road, but it takes all the effort he has to match her stride as fat drops of rain begin to splash against the concrete. “Maybe all the burgers are making me out of shape,” he says, hoping to lighten the mood. “You wanna slow down a bit?”

Scully nearly trips over a rock in the motel parking lot, and she jumps at the loud thunderclap and the flash of lightning that soon follows, but she keeps going. By the time they’ve reached their room, her hair is plastered to her face. After a few failed attempts at jamming her key into the lock, she finally gets it right, and she hurries inside. “I’m going to take a shower,” she mumbles, rooting through an open suitcase, not bothering to turn on the light. 

“Hey,” Mulder says, roughly grabbing her arm. He’s surprised when she doesn’t pull away. “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, fighting the urge to unravel. It would be so easy to turn to him, bury her face in his chest, and unleash all of the worries welling up inside. On the other hand, they have been running for what feels like forever but is in reality only a few weeks, and she’s worried about what might happen if she opens that particular can of worms. She grabs a pair of cotton pajama bottoms, purchased from a Wal-Mart the week before and easily the cleanest thing they have, and tries to move around him. She glances down at his hand on her arm and shakes her head before again trying and failing to move beyond him to the bathroom. “Mulder, I’m--”

“Don’t say you’re fine when you’re not. When that young mother walked by our table at the diner, you couldn’t seem to run away fast enough. And the entire way back here you never even said a word,” Mulder says, blinking as he eyes adjust to the darkness. He’d turn on the light, although judging by the flickering of bulb they left on over the sink, he doubts it would be on for long. 

“I don’t see how you have any right to judge how much I talk considering how little you want to say to me,” she directs her words at the stain she sees on the carpet at their feet, but the sharp intake of breath she hears lets her know her words have hit home. 

“Oh, there’s a lot I’d like to say. I always want to talk to you. We have to be careful, but--”

“--I need to take a shower, okay? Please. We can talk about this later.”

Mulder lets go of her arm, swallowing slowly as he watches her walk by. He catches sight of her tired expression reflected in the mirror and knows he probably shouldn’t push things, but he’s suddenly feeling brave. “When is later exactly?”

“Please,” Scully cries, her voice barely more than a whisper. 

He studies her reflection, watching as she brings a hand up to massage at her left breast. She stands so still, and while they’ve been eating regularly, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look so small. “You’re still producing milk, aren’t you?”

His question is unexpected and perhaps bizarre, but she can’t help the pang of guilt at him being right. An image flashes in her mind of a quiet evening, cuddled up on the couch in her old apartment and feeding the milk to the intended recipient. “It should’ve stopped by now. It’s not as much as….before, but it’s still there.” A blatant reminder of my failure, she thinks, rubbing the tag on the pajama bottoms with her fingers.

“Scully, I’m sorry…” Mulder replies. The touch of his thumb is feather light against her neck as he massages her shoulders, wanting so badly to pull her into him, but not knowing how she’d react to such a gesture. 

She closes her eyes at the sound of her name spilling from his lips. They’ve resorted to aliases when names were necessary, so to hear it is both a blessing and a stark reminder of just how much has changed. She thinks some of his bravery must have leached from the warmth of his palms into her skin as she clears her throat, straining to lock eyes with him in the reflection in the mirror. “I really would like to talk, Mulder. I mean that, but I’d like to not have this conversation while I feel sticky and dirty, not to mention soaking wet from the storm we just walked through.”

Mulder gives her shoulders one last squeeze before planting a kiss against her damp hair and letting go. He takes a few steps back and spreads his arms apart. They’ve waited weeks if not months or even years for some of what they might talk about, so waiting a few more minutes for her to clean up in the least he could do. “Take all the time you need.”

Scully hurriedly rushes into the bathroom, letting the heat from the shower fog up the mirror before stepping inside, grateful for a few moments by herself. She wraps her arms around her middle, letting the water turn her skin pink as it falls around her. She’d rushed into a stall at the diner bathroom to rid herself of the milk she still managed to produce despite no longer having a child to feed it to. The ache she’d felt at hearing the baby crying was an unwelcome reminder of what her life was supposed to be and of the things she’d lost. She doesn’t know how long she’s been in the shower, but eventually water begins pooling at her feet, so she grabs the bar of soap and scrubs herself clean before rushing through drying off and getting dressed. Her hand rests on the doorknob and she counts out a full five seconds before turning it, deciding to soldier ahead before she loses her nerve. 

Mulder hears the door open and sits up straight on the bed, clutching the tv remote tightly in his lap. On the screen, an old rerun of some show he can’t remember the name of plays, and while it had been a welcome distraction as Scully was showering, all he cares about as she walks back into the room is her. “All better?”

She smiles at his attempt to cheer her up. She folds her dirty clothes before putting them back into the suitcase and making a mental note to find the closest laundromat in the morning. The rain still pounds against the building, and as she locks eyes with Mulder she sees lightning flash through the blinds and briefly illuminate his face. “It still hasn’t let up?”

Mulder mutes the tv but doesn’t turn it off, setting the remote on the nightstand before scooting over, hopefully giving her enough space on the bed to feel comfortable. He can’t help thinking of all the nights she’d spent in an empty bed alone while he was gone, and wonders if she almost preferred having it to herself. “We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” he says as she finally sits down. The bed sags a little as she shuffles closer to him, but he notices the fact they’re still not touching more than he probably should. “I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Scully insists. She stares at her hands, picking at a stray hangnail on her thumb. It’s a trivial thing, really, but she can’t help missing her regularly scheduled manicures back home. She nibbles at her bottom lip for a moment before continuing to speak. “I’m just afraid of what will happen when we do.”

“What do you mean?” Mulder asks, knowing that he’s pushing, but also knowing that if he doesn’t they aren’t bound to get anywhere.

“Talking about everything...it just makes it all seem more real. I know that it is, but somehow pretending that it’s not is just easier,” she says, nodding to to herself. She traces the swirled pattern on the comforter between them and readies herself to ask the question that’s haunted her ever since she’d make the choice to give their child away. It’s been the thing keeping her from talking about it, that and the fact that every time she catches herself thinking about him she feels an ache in her chest she doubts will ever go away. “Do you hate me for giving him up?” she asks, her voice rough like sandpaper. 

“No,” he replies, his answer immediate. He waits a second to see if she’ll look at him before hooking a finger under her chin and directing her focus in his direction. “Scully, no. Nothing you do could ever make me hate you. I thought you knew that.”

She wonders if he can hear the thunder of her heart as it pounds in her chest. “How can you not? I gave our son up like he was nothing. Like he didn’t matter. I should’ve trusted that you’d come back for us, that you’d find a way for us to all be safe together.”

“And what if that didn’t happen?” Mulder asks, pulling his hand from under her chin to wipe at a tear trickling down her cheek. “What if I hadn’t come back? And if I had, what’s to say that I could’ve done enough to keep the both of you--to keep all of us--safe? William deserves more than that,” Mulder says, at long last letting the weight of their son’s name settle between them. His hand falls to the bed and he braves the inches between them, lacing their fingers together. “Do you regret coming with me?”

The question takes Scully by surprise, although as she catches the look of fear on his face reflected in the glow from the tv screen, she realizes that perhaps it shouldn’t. “Do you remember the conversation we had, in the earlier years of our partnership, when I told you that even if I knew how everything would’ve gone, I’d still have chosen to stand by you?”

“Are you regretting that now?” Mulder asks, a self deprecating laugh escaping his mouth before he can stop it. 

She leans closer to him, causing the bed to dip and their shoulders to brush, and kisses his stubbled cheek. “I’d really love it if some of the things about our lives were different. Very different. But no. Despite whatever pain and difficulties we’ve faced, I’ve never regretted being with you.”

Mulder breathes in deep through his nose, leaning his head against the wall. He closes his eyes at the sound of the couple next door yelling at each other and opens his mouth to speak again only to hear the sound of a car honking outside. “You deserve better than this.”

The room is different and the location is not the same, but she’s reminded of his words from what feel like forever ago, huddled on a bed in his arms as he tried convincing her not for the first time to leave a life with him behind. Neither of them knew at the time that William had already begun growing inside of her. “You should know by now that you don’t dictate what I deserve.”

It earns her a smile, faint in the blue light coming from the tv. He stares ahead at a family sitting down to what was meant to be a home cooked meal but was in actuality an advertisement for a barbecue joint a few exits down the highway. When he closes his eyes, he pictures nights gathered around the kitchen table with Scully and William, eating whatever meal they’d prepared. According to the books he’d read while away, their son would be at the age where he’d soon want to feed himself, although Mulder knows they’d probably end up cleaning the majority of it off of the floor. He wants that life just as much as she does, and he hates thinking of the role he had in it being taken away from them. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave, but since you don’t, I’d like to thank you.”

“For what?” Scully asks, wrinkling her nose at the mere idea that he’d have anything to thank her for. 

He thinks of the fresh faced, straight laced young woman who walked into his office and unknowingly his heart at the beginning of their partnership, and wonders for a moment what she might think of the woman sitting next to him now. She’s followed him through so many different circumstances he’s not sure he’d have enough time to name them all, and somehow they’ve both managed to make it through. Scathed and a bit beaten up, but still (or in his case, again) alive. “For everything.”

His response is succinct, and she simply nods in response. She’s not quite certain she can put what she feels for the man sitting beside her into words. He’d given her a chance to leave, but there was no chance she’d take it. She thought of William, adjusting to life somewhere else. He has people to love him and hold him, but she wonders if they know the song that puts him to sleep each time, or the way he loves having his back rubbed when he wakes up from a bad dream. Tears blur her vision, but she doesn’’t bother blinking them away. “I miss him.”

Mulder puts an arm around her shoulders and scoots closer to her side of the bed, eliminating the distance between them. He sighs as she lays her head against his shoulder and waits until she’s settled to kiss her forehead. He remembers doing the same thing to William just before he left. “I do, too. We always will, I think. But we can take comfort in the fact he’s safe now. I know it may not seem like it now, but you made the right choice.”

She wonders briefly how he can be so calm about it, but also knows that while his ability to see the bigger picture has gotten them in trouble multiple times, it’s also saved them on many occasions. She made a choice, and for now it’s one she has to accept. This is the furthest they’ve gone into talking about everything since it’s happened, and as much as she knows there is still more to be discussed, she feels her eyes growing heavy.

“Tired?” Mulder whispers into her hair. 

She nods slowly and feels him slide down the bed, taking the blankets with him. Before she can process what’s happening, she finds herself lying down with them tucked around her. She feels his arm slip around her waist and burrows herself as close as she can to his warmth. “I saw the diner across the street has a breakfast menu also. Maybe we could go there in the morning. Pancakes sound good.”

He edges his fingers under the hem of her pajama top, tracing the bottom of her spine with his fingertips. He knows the danger of going to the same restaurant twice and that doing so increases the chance of them being recognized if and when the FBI catches up to them, but at the moment he can’t help the urge to give her whatever she wants. It’s enough that she’s carried on with him this far, he thinks, and eating some pancakes in a diner is the least he could do. He feels her breathing become slower and slower, and finds himself getting tired, too. “That sounds like a plan.”


End file.
